The Incredibly Hot Ice Cream Cake

For those of you who don't know, New England has been having an absurdly hot summer this year.  I am not really complaining- it's better than the absurdly rainy summer we had last year.  It has though, been making baking a bit of a challenge.  My father's birthday was June 30th.  Like any good daughter, I decided to make him a cake.  Baking for my dad is a bit of a challenge because he doesn't eat chocolate at night, doesn't eat nuts (ever) and doesn't have anything that screams out "DAD" at you.  Or so I though.  Until I remembered caramel.  My father loves caramel, butterscotch, all of that burnt, overly-sweet, sugary goodness.  So, I thought I'd make him a caramel cake.  But it was 1,000 degrees, so I thought I'd make him a caramel ICE CREAM cake...

Here's what happened:

Early on the morning of June 30th, I woke up on the Cape.  My parents left to get my niece and I was all alone to bake and boil in peace.  I found a recipe I liked and decided to go to town.  It was 88 degrees in the house when I started the process.  I had not discovered and embraced the idea of grill baking. 

I got out all my ingredients and got going.

Step 1: boil sugar and water on the stove until it makes goo.

It was now 89 degrees in the house.

Step 2: Preheat oven to 350 degree

It was now 90 degrees in the house.

I put the cake together, using warm, rather than fully cooled caramel because, really, what was it going to cool to? and put it in the oven.  In a springform pan.

NOTE: DO NOT BAKE A REGULAR CAKE IN A SPRINGFORM PAN

Step 3: While the cake was baking, I browned the butter for the frosting.  On the stove.

It was now 91 degrees in the house.

After 15 minutes, I was supposed to rotate the cake.  It's a good thing I did because HALF MY CAKE WAS NOW ON THE BOTTOM OF THE OVEN.

I turned off the oven and spent the next five minutes reaching into the 350 degree oven to get the cake batter off the bottom so the angry lady who lives in the smoke detector and incessantly yells "EVACUATE" would not start hollering at me.

It was now 1,000 degrees in the house. 

When the half-as-high-as-it-should-have-been cake came out of the oven, I went to the grocery store to get the ice cream.

Then came the fun part.  Assembling an ice cream cake in a 95 degree kitchen (it had cooled a bit).  I was really hot, and I kind of did this wrong, but I just want it to be done.

I cut the cake in half length-wise and put the bottom half in the springform pan in the freezer.  After a bit I took it out and smushed the ice cream on top of it.  I then poured on more caramel sauce, put the top of the cake on it, frosted it, dumped some caramel chips on and put it back in the freezer. 

I SHOULD have taken my time and put it back in the freezer after each step: cake, freeze, ice cream, freeze, caramel, freeze, cake top, freeze, and so on.  Because I was working too fast, stuff melted and the caramel sauce never really set.

In the end, it didn't matter, was tasted really good.  (it was actually too sweet for me, I peeled the cake off and just ate the ice cream and got laughed at, like usual) And it didn't look half bad either:

The Second Birthday Cake

My aforementioned niece Maggie turned two this month.  This fact is shocking because a. she is so fricken big, I have no idea when that happened, and b. she already has a little sister, who is already six months old (i.e. family events are a bit chaotic).

Here's a shot from the fourth of me with the two girls, Maggie and Zivah: 

Maggie had two birthday celebrations this year, one on her actual birthday at her house with her big brother, little sister, parents and grandparents (on her mom's side) and one at Grammy's Cape house with my parents (her grandparents on her dad's side) and me a few days later.  Note the pun in the post title: this was both her second birthday cake because she turned two, and the second birthday cake she had to celebrate.  (I crack me up).

Unfortunately, I only have slightly yellow pictures I took with my phone.  There might be more later if my father can find the cord that connects his camera to the computer.  I made a vanilla cake with strawberries and whipped cream because when asked what kind of birthday cake she wanted the week before, Maggie replied, "a white cake with strawberries," and well, we already knew she liked whipped cream.

The coolest part about the cake though, was that I cooked it on the grill.  It was way too hot to turn on the oven in house (a fact I learned the hard way when making my father's birthday cake a few weeks earlier - there is no post because I have no pictures and forgot about it until just now). We have a cookbook called Weber's Real Grilling, which is awesome.  I had made an apple cake from it on the grill in the past, and this time followed a recipe for a vanilla cake.    It was super easy, didn't heat up the house and was incredibly moist and delicious.

I made the single layer and let it cook and then cut it in half horizontally, filled it with whipped cream and strawberries, the decorated the top with the same and it was done.  I think it's one of the prettiest cakes I've ever made and was certainly one of the simplest as well.

One note: the recipe called for a 2" high cake pan.  The one I used was about 1.5" and it was OK, but was definitely pushing it.  I'll be picking up a higher one for when I do it again.  Also, if you make the apple cake (which I recommend), make the batter in a mixer, not a food processor.  I did it both ways and in the food processor the batter turned out too thin and it didn't come out as well.

My father found his camera cord!  Here are some more pics:

The Fourth of July

I am way behind on posting and there has been quite a bit of cooking going on around here.  I am going to start with the 4th of July barbecue this year.

Like last year, my mother did her annual 4th of July barbecue.  This year we thought we'd mix it up a little and decided to make, rather than hamburgers and hot dogs, tuna burger and salmon burger sliders.  The salmon burger was a pretty straight-forward recipe that I think we found somewhere online and the tuna burger was a Thai-style, with cilantro and soy.  Both were very tasty.  We made a cilantro mayonnaise, a wasabi mayonnaise and a chipotle mayonnaise to go along with them.  We found cute little rolls to go with them.  All in all, very successful.

For dessert, my mom found a recipe for a red velvet cake that she liked.  I said she should make it two layers and make one red velvet and the other dye blue, then with the white frosting, it would be red, white and blue.  The thought was taken one step beyond...

We did put whipped-cream filled strawberries on top of the cake.  There was nothing wrong with that.  We also discovered that my niece, Maggie, has no problem helping clean up the whipped cream making process:

The BBQ Bake-Off

I had this BBQ Bake-Off with myself by the way.  Yes, that's right, being invited to a birthday barbecue on the first Friday of summer vacation translated to me into "I must spend two days baking." 

In the past 36 hours, I have made Corn & Basil Cornbread, Swedish Plum Pie and a Strawberry Pie, and some Pasta Salad with Cilantro Pesto and Corn. 

I also bought a new pie-carrier from The Container Store.  I like it, but the clasp is a little weird. 

Ok, here we go:

1. Fresh Corn and Basil Cornbread from Bon Appetit
I followed the directions as given except that I didn't have a square pan, so I used a round one.  It rose and overflowed quite a bit (making my forward-thinking baking sheet underneath the pan pretty snazzy).  I then ate the overflowed edges.  I think it is good, but maybe would use a finer corn meal in the future and add it needed more salt.

2. Swedish Plum Pie
I based this off a recipe for Swedish Apple Pie that my mother makes often.  It's not a typical pie in that you put the fruit in the pie dish and then pour a batter over it and bake it that way.  It is one of the easiest pies to make, if you're alright with not having the more traditional two-crust version. 
The recipe I used came out of a cookbook, but is basically the same as this one.  I omitted the nuts and only used 1/2 cup of butter.  I added a splash of leftover buttermilk from the cornbread to thin the batter a bit.  I obviously used plums rather than apples.  I have no idea how many plums it was, I just kept cutting, and cutting, and cutting...

3. The Strawberry Pie
I searched high and low for a strawberry pie recipe that was akin to a regular blueberry or apple pie recipe, but with strawberries.  I kept finding ice-box recipes, but I wanted to bake, and I was afraid to just substitute because of the juice factor.  I finally found a recipe in The Silver Palate cookbook for a raspberry pie and decided that was close enough.  I can't find the recipe anywhere online to link to, so I'll have to put it in my hand the next time I have the cookbook on hand.  Found it!

I have to work on my lattice top.  I made the pastry dough from scratch and used the shortening and butter version from which I typically shy away (I am afraid of shortening), and it made the dough tricky to work with.  Even in a lovely air conditioned kitchen (thanks mom).

4. Cilantro Pesto Pasta and Corn Salad.

This one was kind of a mishmosh of leftovers.  I had leftover pasta and one remaining ear of corn and wanted to do something with it, so I tossed them together with some of the cilantro pesto I made the other day. 

The pesto was made from a supermarket-bunch of cilantro, handful of pistachios, one scallion and some olive oil.  And some salt.  It has a surprisingly mild flavor and would probably be helped by some lime. 

The Pseudo-Guest Post #2: The Salad Cake

Are people aware that there is a National Punctuation Day?  It's on Sept. 24th.  They have T-shirts and stuff.  One of them says "is there a hyphen in anal-retentive?"  That's funny.

OK, back to my story. 

"What's that?" you say, "salad that's a cake?  How ever can that be?"  And that is a good question indeed.  "It is not a cake that is a salad." I would answer, "it is a salad that is a cake."

My friend Anne (of National Grilled Cheese Day fame) has topped herself.  This time, for a salad-themed work potluck, Anne put forth the best kind of salad she could think of.  Actually, this is from a girl who I'm pretty sure just ate her first salad ever about two months ago, so the fact that her donation was full of cake and buttercream is really not that surprising.

It's very cute though.  And I finally get to see what the results of that oh-so-cute, but oh-so-expensive W-S pan are.

Oh-so-cute, but oh-so-expensive Williams-Sonoma pan

Pan results and "bowl" beginning

Salad-Cake! (Cake salad?)

The Blueberry Tart

For Father's Day this year I made a blueberry tart.  I should rephrase: for Father's Day this year, I made a blueberry tart with the HARDEST crust of all time.  I have no idea what went wrong.  I'll get to that in a minute.

There was a recipe in the June Bon Appetite for a Lime Tart with Blackberries and Blueberries.  This was perfect because I like lime and my niece, who both her father and my father adore, LOVES blueberries.  I followed the directions pretty much to a T (note the pretty much, could have been the issue).  The curd came out well.  The only issue was getting it into the fridge to chill as opposed to my mouth to be eaten.  I made the crust in the food processor rather than the mix-master and I forgot to poke holes in it when I put it in the oven.  The result to one or the other of these things, or that perhaps I just cooked it for a few minutes too long, was that it was pretty solid.  It was good, but it was "pick up with your fingers, lick the filling off and then eat the bottom" kind of good.  At least it looked pretty.

Of course, the irony was that Maggie, my niece, wouldn't touch the blueberries and had ice cream for dessert.

I should also mention that it being Father's Day meant that the fathers got to choose what they wanted to do.  In this case it was rebuild the back stairs.  And it was approximately 1,000 degrees outside.  Here are the fathers and to pay them due homage, their stairs.

 

mon frere

mon pere

l'escalier

The Mini-Calzones

I have learned two very important things tonight.  One is that you cannot call your camera like a dog.  Well, you can, but no matter how long and hard you call, it will not respond.  The other is that when you live alone and you can't find your stuff, you have nobody to blame but yourself.  That last one was disappointing (the first one is just kind of embarrassing).

Tonight, I also learned that I have outdone myself.  I didn't think it could be done, but alas, the mini calzones top even the most delightful of strombolis, and that's saying a lot.  And that everything comes out better when prepared while watching Firefly...

I decided to make small calzones because I don't love them when they're big (not enough bread-to-filling ratio), and because there is just one of me, so little, compact food makes sense.  I decided to make two fillings because I am an overachiever.

I began by biking to CVS before Whole Foods.  This is only important because it means that I biked 3.4 miles instead of 1.2 miles and that means I can eat more crap.

I decided I wanted to use the asparagus I bought yesterday at the South End Farmers Market, but also wanted spinach and feta, so two fillings...

I made up both fillings because of my aforementioned aversion to following other people's recipe (except for baking, baking on the fly scares the crap out of me.  I envision thins overflowing in my oven...). 

Approximate recipes:
Spinach-Cheese Filling:
Combine 1 box frozen spinach, thawed, with a sauteed half an onion, chopped.  Then squeeze out all the liquid.  Add 1/3 package of low-fat cream cheese, cut into chunks and combine.  Add 6oz of crumbled feta and one beaten egg.  The cheese and the egg helped the spinach calzones keep their shape excellently.

Asparagus Filling:
I put the asparagus in the sauce a la the artichoke tomato sauce.  I sauteed the other half of the onion for a good bit and added the asparagus, chopped into about 1/2" pieces.   Let that cook for a few minutes and then add a can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes (this time with garlic).  I let that all simmer for another 10 minutes or so.  In the meantime I cut up mushrooms and opened a can of sliced olives to put on top.  I used mozzarella cheese and a three-cheese combo (fontina, asiago and parmesan, I think).

Both kinds of calzones were prepared the same.  I divided the dough into six pieces and rolled the into circles, maybe 7 or so inches across.  Put filling on one half and then folded the other half over.  I pressed the edges with my fingers and with a fork and with my fingers again.  Nothing leaked too.  It was a success in that regard.

Baked at 450 for about 15-18 minutes.

Here are four of them (I had half of each other the other two for dinner).  Obviously, I'm not going to win a prize for consistency any time soon, but they were both delicious. 

I think I might like the spinach one a little better, but it has more cheese in it, it's not that surprising. 

By the way, they were baked on parchment paper, which I really think might be man's greatest creation.  I didn't grow up in a parchment paper or a paper towel household and I'm not sure how we existed.  Of course, between the three of us, we would have used a roll of paper towels a day, so I'm sure the trees and my parents' ability to retire appreciate it.